


First Faces

by SerpentineJ



Series: Distant Light (through shards of ice) [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, For sassy-rising-angel, Whouffaldi SS, whouffaldi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 12:13:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2850479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerpentineJ/pseuds/SerpentineJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s always the first face, he muses. Whouffaldi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Faces

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: Hey! So I took part in the Whouffaldi Secret Santa this year and my mark was sassy-rising-angel. It's been a blast, and I hope you enjoy this!
> 
> Oh, and I think if I timed this right, it should be around 6:30 pm on Christmas where you are, sassy. Nearly Christmas Special time!

It’s always the first face, he muses.

This is the Time Lords’ downfall; their ability to love. The beginnings, the near-childlike trust, the faith. 

After a few regenerations, one begins to harden. To develop a thick exoskeleton, to block out the damning conscience, the moral compass preventing them from making the hard calls. 

That’s why the Doctor likes humans. They’re so refreshingly emotional.

There is one, though, one per life that a Time Lord can’t help but let in. Who they are biologically hardwired to trust, from their birth in a nursery, gazing at the matrons and their mother, to their death, ancient and wise, all their regenerations gone, prepared to face the song of the end. When a Time Lord regenerates, despite all their misgivings, their confusion, their grief and worry, the face they see first will be permanently engrained in their memory, a perfect image, and a bond so strong will form in their minds it will never break.

Some call it love.

There was Rose Tyler; he recalls a love so fiery, so passionate and all-consuming that he would do anything for her, make her happy, hear her laugh and see her smile, go to the ends of the universe for her.

All gone now.

Amelia Pond, he remembers. The Girl Who Waited. When he had first set eyes upon her tiny form, first heard her Scottish accent and her smarmy attitude, he had fallen in love with the red-headed firecracker of a girl; a protective urge had swept over him, and had decided he would keep her safe. Little Amelia Pond. The first face that face saw.

Poor Amelia Pond.

~~~~~~

The first time he sets his new eyes on Clara, he is taken aback. Has she always been this pretty? The adrenaline of the moment must be getting to him, he decides, before shouting something nonsensical about the crashing mess around them, mind awhirl and eyes alive. 

She’s looking at him like he’s a freak and that’s no good, that’s very bad, Clara should never look like that because of him. 

“Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?” He yells, slightly panicked, and yes, Doctor, way to make a good first impression with your new face. Regenerating is always bizarre. He feels older; touching his face, fingers skimming the sharp ridges of his cheeks and the bump on the bridge of his nose; his hair is silver, he notices, and short, slightly curly. 

Oooh. His fingertips brush over his forehead. The eyebrows are a bit alarming. No wonder she looks frightened.

~~~~~~

As they are ushered into the safe house by the lizard woman (Vaster? Vartsa?) and the human with the same color hair as Clara but is not Clara, the potato-man trailing close behind, The Doctor jabbers on, testing out his new mouth.

“Why do you all sound different?” He asks, frowning. “Wrong?”

They’re looking at him oddly and he can see tear tracks glistening on Clara’s cheeks, eyes red and hair frazzled and that’s not okay, she should be cheerful, cheeky, not dour and lost and scared-looking. Has she changed too? That can’t be right, she looks the same.

The short bald one (Stax? No, it’s Strax, The Doctor remembers, the potato nurse.) says something about war and glory and he recalls why he never like that species much; there is no honor, he thinks, in striking down the opposition, only in defending your own.

“Come, Doctor, you need to rest. Lie down.” Vastra, yes, that’s it, Madame Vastra leads him gently by the hand to a room, wooden floors and bookshelves that line the walls, a bed in the middle of it. “Regeneration is a stressful process.”

He frowns. “Why’s there only a bed in here?”

“Well,” The mousy one pipes up, and isn’t she the one he had thought remarkable before, with the whole cross-species relationship thing? “It’s a bedroom. A room for sleeping.”

“Just sleeping? You’ve got whole rooms just for lying down and closing your eyes?”

They roll their eyes at his inane questions and bundle him under the covers. The last thing the Doctor feels is a warm hand enclosing his and a voice, trembling and higher-pitched than normal, asking, “How do we change him back?” 

He falls asleep in a fog of uncertainty, a twist of guilt low in his abdomen.

~~~~~~

The words echo in his mind for days after that.

“How do we change him back?”

Even as he returns to his senses, slowly but surely reconnecting the pathways in his mind to people, places, things, Clara’s question rings in his ears like church bells on a clear, chilly Sunday morning.

“How do we change him back?”

It’s this he’s thinking of as he glides down to earth in the restaurant held aloft by a balloon of human skin (and wouldn’t Cassandra get a laugh from this one), standing in the open doorway, wind whipping his coat and stinging his face.

“How do we change him back?”

He doesn’t feel the chill.

~~~~~~

It stings sharply, like the twist of a knife in his gut, heartbreak and agony lancing through his veins, when Clara looks at him, eyes huge and sad and brown, and says, “I don’t think I know who you are anymore.” Does that mean she’s not willing to try? Doesn’t want to know him, to see him, to move on from his previous life (floppy hair, big chin, bowtie) and accept his new face? 

Something in him feels like it’s shattering.

~~~~~~

He remembers that phone call; the other him had been so sure, so confident in himself, so hopeful that Clara would stay. The Doctor sees her lean against the wall, mobile pressed close to her ear, tears making their quiet way down her cheek, and a flare of something rises in his belly; regret at the flaws of his previous incarnation, not spending more time with her while she still wanted him, jealousy at the happiness he can practically sense, buried behind her sadness, at hearing from him again, and something clutches so hard at his hearts it makes him want to choke.

“Is that the Doctor?”

~~~~~~

She peers up at him, eyes somehow curious and sad, and he holds his breath until a small smile quirks the corners of her mouth. Her gaze is somehow gentle and white-hot, searching and tentative, hopeful and wary.

It takes him completely by surprise when she throws her arms around him.

“Thank you.” She says, murmuring in his ear, and his hearts swell until they feel fit to burst, soaring into the clouds, and his head is so light he doesn’t register the rest of the phrase until it all comes through and brings him crashing back to earth.

“For him.”

~~~~~~

They fall into a rapport, him picking her up on Wednesdays, her living her ordinary life the rest of the week, never breaching the subject of his previous incarnation. The Doctor both loves it and hates it; on the bright side Clara is warming to the new him and he sees her smile and laugh, comfortable chatting and joking with him. On the other hand, he gets the feeling that she will never be completely over the past him, never really lay him to rest, and every time he catches her staring at him with that look of longing on her face the shards of glass twist in his abdomen and tear at his stomach and it’s all he can do to stop himself from breaking.

~~~~~~

Clara still isn’t entirely sure how she feels about the older man who whisks her away once a week.

Sometimes he seems so much like his old self, grinning and jesting, that playful glint bright in his eyes (not brown, not anymore, more silver-green-blue- no, she can’t describe it, a constantly shifting, chameleon-like amalgamation of hues that fascinates her as much as it makes her wary, much like their owner). 

Other times, though, she glimpses the darkness in him, the black that seeps from his bones and swirls around his feet, sifting sand in an indigo ocean. 

In addition, it doesn’t help that she’s significantly more attracted to this version of the Doctor.

Clara sighs and rests her chin on the heel of her palm, staring into the school’s small garden, a cup of tea steaming gently on the table. The kids are messing about outside, cheerful and careless.

~~~~~~

“Clara!” The Doctor grins as he pokes his head out of the TARDIS door and into Clara’s bedroom. “Clara, I’ve got a great adventure for us today!”

There’s no response and he frowns, stepping out. “Clara?” He says in a slightly softer, more uncertain voice. The flat is dark. “Did I mess up the time again?”

A murmur sounds from the bed and Clara sits up, bleary-eyed. “Doctor?” She says, suppressing a yawn. “What… what are you doing here?”

“Er. I’ll just.” His eyes are wide in the near darkness, but he can’t stop them wandering over her form. “I must have altered the time vortex measurement after that trip to Silacia.”

She chuckles and the Doctor is on a hair-trigger, tense, waiting for her to shout at him or something, but she never does. Instead Clara flops back down onto her pillow, snuggling into its warmth, and doesn’t say another word.

“Uh… Clara…” He asks hesitantly, and she cracks an eye open to glance at him. “What day is it?”

She grins and scoots over to one side of the bed, shuffling the covers open. “It’s Wednesday, you twat. Get in.”

The Doctor raises his eyebrows but she just closes her eyes again. He exhales, breath leaving him in a puff.

“Yes, boss.” He murmurs endearingly, toeing off his shoes and shrugging out of his jacket before climbing under the covers.

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: The next update will be tomorrow. What did you think?


End file.
